[plots] Help me be a Rat-Bastard DM

[der_kluge]

All right, I've figured it out.

The party is currently at this dwarven stronghold. Back at the Nymph's grove, the avatar communes, and the nymph and the rogue just kind of hang out.

Valgo, the former party leader who got separated from the party is currently a vampire. The avatar is in a hallow'd space that he augmented (through godly magic) with a nondetection. So, he is unlocatable. However, Valgo, through magic *would* be able to find his old companions, even though he would have believed them for dead a long time ago. So, he scries and figures out that the party is in this cave, but the rogue is in the middle of the forest somewhere - curious.

So, he and other vampires sneak into the forest area and find the avatar. They ambush the place, kill the rogue and the nymph and kidnap the avatar. These vampires are all high-level wizards to boot. To cover their trail, they find some dead slaad (not hard to do since they're crawling all over the continent) and leave them here as a decoy.

PCs come back to the grove after a good bout of dungeon-delving, only to find:
A pile of smouldering slaad bodies, and no avatar, and no nymph, and no rogue.
While looking over the area, the rogue (now a vampire) comes out and says, "I'm so glad you guys came back! It was horrible - slaad came from out of nowhere, and there was a huge battle. They kidnapped the nymph and the avatar. I stayed hidden (she is a rogue after all) and they didn't find me, thank god. I overheard them say that they were going to sacrifice the avatar for some ritual!"

So, cleric communes the location of the avatar or of the nymph, and the party goes - straight into a trap. Even better, the rogue tells them that she's coming with them, because she no longer feels safe in the woods all alone any more. So, not only will they be headed into a trap, I have a rogue vampire in the party with them that will double-cross them at just the right opportunity. I also have a vampire nymph which I can use as bait at some point as well.

MUAHAHAHAH!

Now the question - what kind of trap should I use?

 

[Sherlock]

Wouldn't the vampire rogue have some difficulties traveling with the group? I mean, like traveling in broad daylight and lugging it's coffin around?

 

[der_kluge]

Brilliant deduction, Sherlock! I hadn't considered that. The entry indicates that sunlight disorients the vampire, but doesn't actually harm them. Likewise, I would need to find a place that didn't involving crossing over running water, since that would pose a problem.

Surely there are vampire-related magic items that would enable them to travel through daylight without incident. She could have something on her that would be given to her by the master vampire to assist in such matters.

And she wouldn't really need her coffin. That's only necessary in case she dies, and goes gaseous, then she would need to be able to get to it within 2 hours.

So, technically she could go whereever she wanted to, but if she got too far from it, then she would be in jeopardy unless someone follows the party really far behind them and carries it along. Nothing I can see that says that it has to be a stationary coffin. The vampires could have henchman that carry the coffins around all over the place.

 

[der_kluge]

Bad Enworld, no double-post. No biscuit.

 

[der_kluge]

And again!
Bad Enworld, no double-post. No biscuit!!!

 

[Epametheus]

Vampire is restricted to "humanoid or monstrous humanoid;" fey vampires are technically against the rules. Is the nymph a classed druid with wild-shape, or does she just have the spells? The vampires could probably take her as a living hostage/drink machine, if all they need to worry about is some spell-casting.

This can be brushed aside, of course.

Is there any reason why the vamps are toying with the party instead of just crushing them?

 

[der_kluge]

Well, the vampires might initially believe that the place where the PCs are - an undead infested dwarven stronghold, might do them in regardless. But, just in case, they might leave the rogue behind to lure them into something more sinister (I'm thinking of a dungeon filled with beholders and a dragon) that the vampires might know the existance of.

They could send the nymph as an emissary to the place to say, "Hey, food is coming, deal with it for us, and it's all yours".

So, they're intent isn't to toy with them, but the kill them, but in the meantime, they have other pressing matters to attend to. So, the rogue and the nymph (new lackeys) have been instructed to deal with them as efficiently as possible.

And, good point about the fey restriction. I'll guess I'll just have to overlook that little point. Because the concept of a nymph vampire is just too cool otherwise.

 

[Quickbeam]

Sounds a bit overly complicated to me, but I'm only looking at a snapshot of the ongoing events and backdrop.

Two questions:
1) Won't your party suspect something's up with the sudden return of the rogue?
2) What is your ultimate plan for the avatar and dead god?

 

[der_kluge]

The rogue was the original character of one of the players. She decided she didn't want to play a rogue, so we found a way to introduce a different character into the game for her. In the game, we decided that her character had "had enough", so to speak, so she remained behind in this grove with a nymph and the avatar. It would be perfectly reasonable to the party to believe that the rogue would want to come with them because since the nymph and the avatar have supposedly been kidnapped, she won't feel safe anymore.

As for the avatar, my original plan was to have him commune with his fallen deity in order to give orders to the party to stop a growing threat of evil and chaos. Eventually, the party would be successful, and the avatar would be able to converge with his deity and ascend into the afterlife.

However, I've decided that that was too boring, so instead he's communing with his deity and having them acquire fragments of power (he was going to do that anyway) and as ge gained power, he was going to ascend into godhood himself, possibly sacrificing the PCs in a final epic conflict.

But, there are others here who see opportunities to gain godly power, and they have kidnapped the avatar in order to drain him of his power for their own nefarious purposes.